Trigger Warning for discussions of police harassment and violence against trans* people.

The New Jersey police department is being sued after two Newark officers allegedly harassed a trans woman on the basis of her gender identity.

Diana Taylor of Newark said two officers steered their cruiser into her path as she walked down a street two blocks from her home on March 23, 2009. According to Taylor, the officers made fun of her wig and demanded she show them her identification. She didn’t have it with her, but she gave them her legal name, [redacted].

The two officers had placed a bet on Taylor’s gender before they blocked her way, she said during a news conference after the ACLU-NJ filed the lawsuit in Essex County Superior Court on Wednesday, Feb. 17. One said to the other, “You’re right. I owe you $10. It is a man,” Taylor recalled.

She further alleged the officers began tormenting her by calling her a “chick with a dick,” “faggot” and other derogatory names. Taylor added they further embarrassed her by questioning her sexuality as witnesses gathered.

She said the officers handcuffed her and took her to a police station where they searched crime databases looking for a reason to arrest her. Although they found she had no record, Taylor contends police continued to humiliate her by frisking her in a sexually intrusive manner.

What these officers have allegedly done is not in the least bit unusual in terms of interactions between police and trans* people. For many trans* people of all identities (binary, non-binary, agendered/non-gendered, etc.), but particularly trans women, and particularly trans women of color, law enforcement is entirely synonymous with violence.

Threats from police range from “only” misgendering and other verbal harassment, to the denial of medical treatment and other basic necessities in prison, to beatings, other physical assault, and sexual assault by police and/or while in police custody.

Indeed, just last week, a San Antonio police officer allegedly handcuffed and raped a trans woman while on duty.

And so, while I’m sure that someone is aching to tell me that “not all police officers are like that,” it doesn’t change the fact that there is a problem of violence on a systematic level. It doesn’t change the fact that for those living with marginalized identities, the police are not seen as protectors are good people doing their jobs, but as very real threats, and as downright terrifying. It doesn’t change the fact that we live in a culture that sanctions and encourages police violence, and perpetually excuses it with the rationalization that “they must have had a good reason.” It doesn’t change the fact that we live in a culture where trans* people are perceived as “deviant,” where supposedly “deviant” people are perceived as less human, and where bodies perceived as less human are perceived as bodies deserving of violence.

And the fact that all of this is true also doesn’t change the fact that our world should never, ever have to be a place where one can look at what was done to Diana Taylor and rationally think to themselves “thank god they only harassed her,” where one can be logically grateful that the sexual assault — and do not kid yourself that “frisking in a sexually intrusive manner” is not sexual assault — did not turn into an even more violent rape, where one can understandably breathe even the tiniest sigh of relief, because it could have been so, so much worse. That the world is that place right now is a complete and utter horror.

I wish Ms. Taylor the best of luck with her case. I hope she receives justice for what was done to her, and I praise ACLU-NJ for fighting on her behalf.

But history shows us that police brutality and other misconduct is rarely punished, especially when the victim is a person of color or trans* (and Ms. Taylor is both). And it shows us further that even when punished, won cases rarely result in substantial and sustainable change, because the small fear of an outside possibility rarely negates one’s overwhelming sense of superiority, power, and invincibility — and because even if it did, fear does not breed real respect. And as hard as winning a case against a police officer or force is, getting people to view other people not like themselves as real, live human beings is even harder.

via Transgriot

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, descriptions of non-consensual sexual conduct, victim-blaming and slut-shaming

The Tampa Bay St. Petersburg Times has printed the truly gut-wrenching, tragic story of a 13-year-old girl named Hope Witsell, who committed suicide after a photograph of her breasts, which she sent to a boy’s cell phone, was forwarded all over the school.

At the end of the school year at Beth Shields Middle School, the taunting became so bad that Hope Witsell’s friends surrounded her between classes. They escorted her down hallways like human shields, fending off insults such as “whore” and “slut.” A few days before, Hope had forwarded a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked — a practice widely known as “sexting.” The image found its way to other students, who forwarded it to their friends. Soon the nude photo was circulating through cell phones at Shields Middle and Lennard High School, according to multiple students at both schools. …  School authorities learned of the nude photo around the end of the school year and suspended Hope for the first week of eighth grade, which started in August. About two weeks after she returned to school, a counselor observed cuts on Hope’s legs and had her sign a “no-harm” contract, in which Hope agreed to tell an adult if she felt inclined to hurt herself, her family says. The next day, Hope hanged herself in her bedroom. She was 13.

Her death is the second in the nation in which a connection between sexting and teen suicide can clearly be drawn.

I recommend that you go read the full article, because despite the many problems with it, there is a lot of information there, some of which I will not have the time to discuss here.

As Veronica Arreola said on her Twitter, while the media insists on calling this a “sexting-related suicide,” it’s much more accurately referred to as a “slut-shaming suicide.” Because the photograph she sent is not what drove this poor girl to kill herself — the non-consensual spreading of the photograph, and the subsequent reaction that her classmates and all adults in positions of authority had to it seems to absolutely have been what drove her to despair. And that is a truly vital distinction to make if we actually care about the fact that a 13-year-old girl is dead, and why.

The set of circumstances here are increasingly common ones — and by “set of circumstances” I do not mean “teenage girls sending sexual photographs of themselves to others” but “the non-consensual spreading of said photographs.”

A poll conducted by her organization, WiredSafety, found that 44 percent of boys in co-ed high schools had seen at least one naked picture of a female classmate. Overwhelmingly, they shared the images with others.

And while everyone sure as hell seems to be worried about What! We’re! Teaching! Our! Girls! that they send the photographs, no one seems to be saying a goddamn peep about what we’re teaching our boys when they think that non-consensual sexual conduct is okay. Yet again, apparently consensual female sexuality is seen as a bigger threat to society — and to girls themselves — than non-consensual male sexual behavior perpetrated against them.

But it’s also important to note that while boys appear to overwhelmingly be the ones to receive these types of photos and then spread them, in Hope Witsell’s case, it was another girl who was the culprit:

Accounts vary, but many students describe the chain of events this way: The last week of school in June, Hope forwarded a photo of her breasts to the cell phone of Alex Eargood, a boy she liked. A rival girl, who was the girlfriend of another boy Hope liked and a friend of Alex’s, asked to borrow Alex’s phone on the bus. That girl found the image and forwarded it to other students.

Alex, now 16 and a freshman at Armwood High School, told the St. Petersburg Times last week that he deleted the photo. He does not remember whether he deleted it before or after the girl borrowed his phone. The mother of the girl told the Times that her daughter would not comment for this article.

Non-consensual sexual conduct is no more consensual, no more right, and no less devastating when committed by a girl against another girl. Bullying is no better when committed by girls — and anecdotal evidence seems to show that while boys are more likely to spread the photographs in the first place, girls are more likely to attack the victim afterward. Sexual harassment and slut-shaming does not magically turn into something else when it’s not boys doing it. And while a partial explanation, internalized misogyny is no more of an excuse for girls and women who commit such acts than rape culture is an excuse for boys and men.

And no matter who is the perpetrator, victim-blaming is still victim-blaming, which is something else Hope was made a victim of. First, she was a victim of cultural messages that told her that what her classmates did to her was her own fault:

At the same time, friends say, Hope knew that the biggest mistakes made were her own.

“She didn’t blame it on anybody,” said Rebecca Knowles, 14. “She realized it was her fault for sending them in the first place.

Secondly, she was a victim of attitudes like ones in that quote right above: attitudes that confirm and refuse to contradict this false belief. Even after she died because she couldn’t cope anymore, the newspaper is sitting there telling her that she was the one to blame. Hope didn’t believe that she made the biggest mistakes. She didn’t think it. Apparently, she knew it, because who could ever question the idea that if you send a nude photograph of yourself to another person, you’re obviously a slutty slutty slut slut who deserves whatever is coming to you?

The display of these kinds of attitudes went beyond words, though; they were also shown in actions. Hope Witsell was punished severely for taking the photograph. She was grounded for the summer. She was suspended from the first week of school. She lost her position as student adviser. And when another boy coerced her into sending another photograph, and she complied out of fear, she was again treated as a culprit rather than a victim:

No one knows how Hope met a group of boys staying across the hall. Rebecca Knowles, who is the FFA president, saw Hope talking to the boys by the hotel pool.

The boys were in their late teens and were not there for the FFA convention. They insisted she send a nude photo to them.

One of the boys was especially aggressive and called the room repeatedly on the conference’s last night, asking Hope for a photo of her breasts.

“They kept calling and they kept bugging her,” said Rebecca, 14, who said she was in the room but asleep. “I think she was just scared. One of our roommates was scared as well and said, ‘Oh, my God, just do it.’ They were scared and wanted to get it over.”

The boy calling didn’t have a cell phone. So Hope used Rebecca’s phone to take a picture of her breasts, then slipped it outside her door.

The phone, which Hope had left outside for the boy, was still in the hallway when an adult found it and saw the photo.

As for the boys who demanded the second photo, the girl who orginally forwarded the first photo, the girls and boys who harassed Hope in the hallways, chased her, taunted her, and made her life a living hell … there is not a single word indicating that they faced any consequences for their actions.

And while the article rightfully goes on at length about the certainly awful way that the school dealt with their knowledge that Hope was self-harming and in danger, there is no mention of how the school’s actions also contributed to her being in danger in the first place. The fact is that they punished her — they told her over and over again that she was being called a slut and a whore because of her own actions, that being a “slut” or “whore” are very, very bad things that deserve punishment and bring reason for shame, that sluts and whores deserve to be taken out of school and to be used as an example of what happens when girls display any form of sexuality (with their consent or not), and that sluts and whores cannot be trusted to advise other students, because apparently they have no moral compasses. And the fact is that they apparently failed to punish the other slut-shamers, sexual harassers, bullies, and sexual perpetrators for whom they were responsible.

Hope Witsell made the decision to end her own life. A whole lot of other people seemingly decided that keeping women in their place was a lot more important than protecting a 13-year-old girl, and than stamping out sexual misconduct. A whole society backed that second decision up.

And so while Hope Witsell made her decision, that decision rests not only on her, but also on the head of our misogynistic, victim-blaming, rape culture. And we can either wash our hands of the whole business, blame teenage angst, and say “you know how kids are,” or we can accept responsibility, and do our damnedest to try and change that culture and prevent this from happening again.

I know way, way, way better than to waste my time analyzing tabloid magazines.  Which is why I pretty much never do it, and I’m not going to bother saying much very now.  Because of course, we pretty much see the same shit above every fucking year around this time.

But I saw this magazine in the checkout line in the grocery store, and masochist that I am I had to see who was cruelly and ridiculously shamed on the cover this year with a “worst” label.  And upon seeing Uma Thurman there with the phrase “Saggy Boobs” emblazoned underneath her, it just hit me in the gut like nobody’s business. Because I’m at least used to butts similar to mine getting sneered at.

I’d say “way to go telling women that the way their bodies naturally look is repulsive,” but of course I know that’s the point of virtually everything in this magazine.  But. There is a little fucking thing in this world called gravity, and strangely enough, boobs are subject to it.  Especially big ones. (You know, the same kind women are supposed to feel bad about not having.)

It’s incredibly past the point of bad enough when we’re mocking the “lumpy butt” of a woman who is already thinner than most (while simultaneously mocking a woman for being too thin), as if bodies exist for judging and ones that carry an ounce of fat are hideous and shouldn’t be let out the house.  Can it get any worse when we’re mocking a body “flaw” that is not only shared by huge portions of the population, but that we also can’t even pretend can be “fixed” by spending every waking hour of your life in the gym?

Finally, they’re at least acknowledging the truth that it’s not about getting women to “take pride” in their bodies or “work harder” at them. It’s just about reminding us that close to all women’s bodies, no matter how much “pride” you take or how hard you “work,” will ever be considered good enough.

A man who counsels teens on how to remain sexually abstinent has been arrested and charged with sexual assault (from further descriptions, seemingly rape) of one of his “students”:

The girl told officers that Hoheb sexually assaulted her in his car in the parking lot of a Trumbull gym where he had stopped while driving her home in March.

In an interview with police detectives, Hoheb allegedly said he had been counseling teenage girls, including the victim, on how to say “no” to sexual advances from adults.

“I wanted the girls to understand that no matter who it may be; the pastor, another adviser or myself, they should not be afraid to use the word no,” police said Hoheb told them.

Hoheb also allegedly told police the girl had expressed interest in him, but he was determined to “nip it in the bud.” Although Hoheb initially denied having sexual contact with the girl, police said he later admitted having sexual relations with her in his car.

I learned of this story through Thomas, who argues that the rape in this case is consistent with the teachings of the abstinence counselor, as both abstinence-only teachings and sexual assault work off of a model where sex is seen as a commodity and female bodies are treated as sexual property.  I don’t disagree with him.

I want to take it a step further though and more closely discuss the counselor’s rather transparent excuse that he was attempting to teach the girl how to say “no.”  Yes, it’s an excuse, quite clearly, for how he was not really responsible for his actions because he was role playing, and she just misunderstood.  It is, in many ways, a variation on an old standard.

But in other ways, I think, it points to another aspect of rape culture that goes beyond just the apologism of “rape is often a misunderstanding.”  It points to the aspect where it is seen as the responsibility of women to say “no.”

Yet again we find the problem with the “no means no” model.  Indeed, no does mean no, but far too often people interpret this as meaning that a lack of a no means yes.  The onus is not on both parties to ensure that the other partner, whatever their gender, is freely and willingly consenting.  It’s on a woman, in any male-female interaction, to say “no” or deal with whatever violence the man might choose to enact.

Of course, it is extremely important to teach everyone that they have a right to say no, and to give them the tools they need to say so with confidence.  I’ve written on this importance before, numerous times.  But that’s not the lesson taught in abstinence-only education.  Abstinence-only does not teach about sexual rights, consent and autonomy.  It teaches not of a right to say no or to say yes.  It teaches of a supposed responsibility for women to say no, and to do a damn good job of it.  It treats men as inherent predators, women as inherent prey, and women’s bodies as existing in a permanent state of sexual accessibility to men.

This dynamic is even more disturbing when Hoheb freely argues that he was teaching girls how to say “no” to adults.  As though a man who goes after a girl would be expected to even listen to a “no.”  As though, despite the fact that a girl cannot consent to sex with an adult, it still doesn’t diminish that responsibility on her behalf to actively deny the supposedly reasonably assumed right to sexual access.  As though if she does not say no, whatever the adult does is her own fault.

Yes, this man is giving an excuse for his actions.  On some level, however, like many rapists, he might actually believe it.  He was “teaching her to say no.”  And if she didn’t say “no” despite her understandable fear and the power differential, if she didn’t say it forcefully enough, or loudly enough, or with enough confidence, under this model he teaches, he would see himself as having a right to rape her.

Because her body is a temple of purity to defend, not an entity connected to a person with inherent rights.  Because “no” is the only word a woman can utter that matters, that gives her any value worth respecting.

You’ve probably seen a lot of media coverage lately around the phenomenon of teenagers sending nude or otherwise sexual pictures of themselves to each other, and the fact that a lot of parents, and more notably law enforcement officials, are really freaking out about it.

It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote about an outrageous case where a 15-year-old was arrested on child pornography charges for taking nude photographs of herself.  But these types of stories have since really taken off; and they’re even calling it “sexting” now, because what would a story about teenagers and sex be without more ways to make it inappropriately tantalizing?

Of course, the media seems to be taking notice not to talk about how girls are being exploited by law enforcement, and often the (usually) boys who they sent the photos to, but about how girls are Teh Slutty for taking pictures of themselves, and how poor boys are being punished for getting caught up in Teh Slutty themselves.  Like here at CNN, and in Thomas’ response to the article at the Yes Means Yes blog:

This article is not perfect, but it makes two really good points: First, that this is wildly and willfully excessive.

Should Phillip be punished? Yes. Should the six teens in Pennsylvania face consequences? Yes. But let’s kick them off cheerleading squads and sports teams. Make them do community service and take classes on sex crimes. Educate other teens on the dangers of sexting. Pay a price, yes, but these young people shouldn’t pay for this for the rest of their lives.

Second, that this ought to be a wake-up call that teen sexuality will develop, and that parents have a responsibility to shape it, which they cannot do by ignoring it

Now, what Thomas does here, again, is not new.  In the original article I wrote about, this issue also came up — the case of a girl taking photos of herself was compared with a case of a boy spreading photos of an ex-girlfriend without her consent.  And, in fact, he’s only agreeing with someone else presenting the problem.  So I could be accused of picking on Thomas here, but this upsets me precisely because I like Thomas, and because he wrote a really intelligent, much longer post on this topic recently.

This most recent post, on the other hand, totally misses the mark.  As Elizabeth says about a different but similar article: “it treats teens sending revealing pictures of themselves and teens sending revealing pictures of others without permission as if they were equivalent acts.”  And they’re fucking not.

In the CNN article, Phillip Alpert, an 18-year-old who shared pictures of his ex-girlfriend as revenge after a break-up and was convicted on child porn charges, is compared to three girls who sent pictures of their own volition to three boys, all of whom are charged with child pornography.

Do we not see the problem here?

Let me spell it out:  the problem is that the pictures are being treated as the problem.  And they’re not.  Whatever personal qualms you may have, there is nothing morally wrong, nor should there be anything illegal, about sending sexual pictures of yourself to another person so long as you’re doing so willingly, even if you’re underage.  There is, however, something gravely wrong with distributing sexual pictures of another person without their permission.

These are two radically different cases.  Six teenagers engaged in consensual sexual behavior that authorities disapproved of.  And one boy engaged in non-consensual sexual behavior.  But they’re being treated like the same damn thing.

No one, in fact, seems to care about the fact that there is a girl in Alpert’s case who had her trust an autonomy violated.  They just care a) that the dirty pictures exist in the first place and b) a boy’s life is ruined as a result of his own goddamn behavior.

We can debate whether or not Alpert’s actual punishment is appropriate.  Should he have been convicted of a felony for his actions?  Should he be forced to register as a sex offender?  Though again, I don’t think that the pictures themselves were the problem and the charges are therefore probably off, I’m not particularly interested in that at the moment.

I’m interested in the fact that CNN’s Mike Galanos seems to think that he only deserves to be kicked off of the school’s sports team (even though he now a legal adult).  And that the six teens who engaged in consensual behavior deserve exactly the same.  I’m interested in the fact that these two acts are being equated, and the fact that they are equated is probably precisely why there are so few laws out there to combat what Alpert actually did wrong.

And I’m interested in the fact that Thomas agrees that this is a wake-up call to parents regarding “teen’s sexuality.”  No, it should be a wake-up call to parents that their sons (and daughters — but primarily sons) may also engage in non-consensual sexual behavior and that they need to do something to stop it.  Not to stop their daughters from taking pictures of themselves because those boys just can’t help themselves, but to stop their sons from being abusive, misogynistic pieces of shit.  To equate what Alpert did with “teen sexuality” is not only belittling to teens who are expressing their sexuality in consensual and healthy ways, but offensive to all teenage boys, the majority of whom are not behaving like Alpert.

If I had a teenage son and a teenage daughter, I know which one I’d be most concerned about talking to.  And the fact that most of this country, at least if media representation is any indication, has the opposite answer tells us a whole lot about the kind of apologist rape culture we live in.

I said a few weeks ago that I was planning to cancel my subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, due to their repeated misogyny and other prejudice.

Well, I hadn’t yet gotten around to it.  But then, this issue just landed in my mailbox:

The subscription to “random misogyny mag,” as my husband just called it, is officially cancelled.  They also got this email, along with my cancellation:

Dear Editors,

As a loyal subscriber to your magazine for many years, I have written you many letters, with increasing frequency, about the repeated misogyny and other prejudice displayed in your magazine’s pages.  From allowing Matt Taibbi to use misogynistic and homophobic slurs like “cocksucker,” to calling a transgender woman a “tranny,” to wondering not how to end intimate partner violence but how oh how Chris Brown will rebound his sales figures, you’ve ignored each and every email, both actually and in spirit.  Opening up my mailbox and seeing two women simultaneously fellating an ice cream cone was the absolute final straw.  I just cancelled my subscription, and I won’t be coming back.

Not that your liberal publication wants feminist female readers like me anyway.  Treating women like human beings is so the antithesis of sex, drugs, and rock and roll!  Wouldn’t want to water yourselves down, right?  Next thing you know, you’d be publishing cover stories about a show like Gossip Girl!

Oh, wait.

Good luck to you in the dwindling print media sector, Rolling Stone.  When your readers are so disposable, you’re going to need it.

So, dear readers, any suggestions on how I should replace said music magazine subscription?  Spin sucks, Blender is just as misogynistic to the best of my knowledge, and I found Paste to be downright pompous.  I’ve seen Mojo in stores and it looks alright, but I’ll be damned if their international subscriptions aren’t outrageous.  So . . . thoughts?

Watching random music videos on TV last night, this commercial for the new Seth Rogen film Observe and Report kept playing over and over again.  The basis of the film seems to be that Seth Rogen plays a quirky (according to IMDB, bi-polar — so yay, we can likely expect lots of “jokes” mocking disability and mental illness, too!) mall cop, who has to solve the case of a man who keeps flashing women at the mall.

Well I think we can all agree that this is a totally awesome and highly amusing premise for a movie.  So we should probably be unsurprised to see that just a few seconds in, there is a rape joke:

I imagine that the “joke” within the context of the film might possibly be that the line “everyone thinks they’re fine until someone puts in ‘em something they don’t want in ‘em” is referring to something other than a penis. If that’s not the “joke,” then the joke is clearly just “Ha! A penis in a woman that she doesn’t want in her! Whew, rape is hilarious!”

But even if it is the case, the “joke” is still “Oh, hey, that sounds like he’s talking about a penis! In her, when she doesn’t want it in her! Oh man, saying things to women that makes it sound like you’re talking about someone raping them is hilarious!”

And regardless of the context within the movie? The joke in the trailer is clearly the first interpretation anyway.

Actually, this isn’t the exact same trailer that I kept seeing on TV last night.  In the preview I saw, we also get a scene were Seth Rogen’s character grabs the female lead and starts making out with her right after she demonstrates how completely drunk she is by throwing up all over the sidewalk.  Get it!  It’s a joke!  Drunk chicks are awesome because you get to take advantage of them!

You can also rest assured knowing that when I was searching for this particular trailer on YouTube, I came across another clip from the movie that portrays women who are the victims of sexual harassment or assault as hysterical, helpless, over-reacting, obnoxious — and yet funny! — bimbos.

Aren’t we so happy that the Apatow clan is constantly purported by the mainstream media to be taking over and reimaging the entire comedy world?  God knows that we weren’t going to find a whole movie based on rape jokes before they came along!

The latest from Sarah Haskins:

(If you can’t view the embedded video, click here.)

And for those of you who missed it, she also had a pretty awesome Op-Ed in the Washington Post on Barbie’s 50th birthday. (Yeah, I’ll admit it; that’s how I played with my Barbie, too.)

I so cannot wait to see Sarah at WAM!

From contributing editor Mark Binelli’s otherwise decent Rolling Stone article Motor City Breakdown, about the dying automobile industry in Detroit:

At the show, the traditional rituals are still taking place. If you’ve never been to an auto show, the main ritual involves adults climbing in and out of vehicles they will not be allowed to drive, which always seems deeply unsatisfying. (For related reasons, I’ve never liked strip clubs.)

Well then.

What is with those women being so rude and short-sighted as to not allow Mark Binelli to fuck them?  I mean, they’re on display — like cars, so . . .

Just about every two issues, I find myself writing a letter, which always goes unpublished, castigating Rolling Stone for claiming to be so incredibly progressive while failing to reflect said values when it comes to many marginalized and oppressed groups.  Usually these letters are about the magazine’s regular unabashed sexism — though I’ve also written in letters about Matt Taibbi’s favorite insult “cocksucker,” and most recently I wrote in with regards to the decision to use the slur “tranny” to refer to transgender Real World cast member Katelynn.

This time, I’m not even sure what to say.  But considering the fact that in the same issue, the entirety of what they had to print on Chris Brown assaulting Rihanna was 200 words about how Brown can revive his career (seriously), it’s pretty damn much “fuck you guys, you can take that $11 40 year subscription I’ve been going off of forever and shove it up your asses, because I can surely find less insulting ways than this to read the latest tiny piece of Beatles-related news and see random photographs of Sir Paul.”

If you’ve got something better, send it to letters@rollingstone.com.

You might have seen the extremely offensive and sexist Australian Jim Beam ad series last year at Hoyden About Town.

The Neighbours shows naked women sunbathing outside in their backyard, with men peeping on them.  The Girlfriend shows a doormat of a woman explaining how she likes when men neglect her.  The Tragedy shows a very attractive woman explaining how she’s sexually attracted to other women.

In all of these, the title of the ad is stated with the word “the” highly emphasized in order to indicate that a phrase like “the girlfriend” means “the ultimate, world’s best girlfriend.” And of course, what could be a bigger tragedy than a woman whose sexuality doesn’t revolve around men?

Now, Jim Beam is holding a video remake contest, where they encourage their “fans” to make their own versions of the commercials.  Obviously, with the ads so offensive in the first place, this was always going to be a disaster. But one particular remake of the Girlfriend is especially appalling.

The original ad:

And, the remake:

Get it? Because what’s better than a woman who doesn’t have any desires or feelings of her own, but only exists for men’s sexual pleasure without pesky little nuisances like consent getting in the way?

Thank fucking god I don’t drink bourbon.  Though, interestingly, I certainly could use a drink.  Perhaps this was their real marketing strategy all along?

Thanks to Jenny for the link.